Clinical Psychologist

WHERE’S THE PAIN?

Why writing can be so difficult for gifted children.

INTRODUCTION

The disconcerting and all too familiar mantra: “But you are so smart, you have so much potential. We do not understand why you are refusing to do this!” is one I often hear from the parents of highly verbally gifted children during the first years of elementary school. The heart-felt question-concern-demand is most often about writing. Enmeshed in the complex hopes and dreams of family, many gifted children who genuinely care to do their best and thus please their parents and teachers, fall prey to a developmental conundrum which seems reserved for them. If they accept the concern and pressure; if they take on the projected hopes and dreams of their parents and their parents’ parents, they enter into an endless vicious circle of caring and intention leading mostly to paralysis and frustration.

I.Process–sources of the problem:

Gifted children learn early and quickly. Verbally gifted children are able to put many of their thoughts into words so as to be understood [by parents] very early in life, well before adults in their culture require or expect. Many have the oral­-motor skills to enable them to adjust their rate of speaking reasonably well to their verbal-thinking rate (For many gifted children the leap from mental image to physical representation in the physical world is much greater than for less precocious children, one which is often delayed or avoided all together. This is painfully illustrated by so many gifted children who decide by age four or five that they cannot draw.)

As they increase their ability to speak their minds at ages four or five many gifted children experience anothersignificant, long-lived barrier to personal expression–writing.

II. Content—

1. The physical act, the feeling of writing & its consequences:

The title “Where’s the Pain?” comes from a demonstration I have utilized with elementary-age children who struggle with writing. First, I tell them that we are going to figure out why writing is so painful for them. They usually deny this and assure me that: “It is not really (literally, physically) painful.” I gently disagree and say: “But you are a nice, caring person, you try your best, there really must be something really painful about writing that keeps you from doing it.”

I ask them to tell me “something interesting or funny that occurred in the past few days.”

After negotiating for a few minutes about what recent experience might qualify as being adequately interesting or funny I ask them to tell me about the experience, allowing them only fifteen to twenty seconds to speak. I ask them to stop speaking, I hand them a pad and pencil and ask them to write exactly what they just said.

At times, it feels to me as if I am pushing the envelope of the relationship to the boundary of their tolerance, since it often appears to be perceived as a terrible trick, a painful request.

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2. The visible products of writing and their effects:

Rarely does a child get through the first word before grimacing and erasing. Writing down fifteen to twenty seconds of speaking requires 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 minutes. And at the end, what they have written inevitably appears sloppy, minimal, and unimpressive. As we look, together, at the results of their efforts on the page between us, it is at this moment that I state the point of the demonstration. I state, dramatically: “Is it any surprise that you really dislike writing?”

III. Results–

Contrast, Discrepancy, & Discouragement:

The frustration which inevitably results from viewing the sample of one’s own words on the page that is inadequate and an unrepresentative sample of thoughts can have quite a psychological impact on gifted children. Especially sensitive gifted children have completely refused to write as late as fifth grade. One such student told me: “Anything I write can never be correct. It will never be exactly what I am thinking.” Perhaps his parents and/or his teacher may have labeled him and treated him as stubborn, applying increasing demands for output and punishment for the lack of it. I thought of him as amazingly caring and resilient. As I so frequently have to suggest to parents or teachers: “If he/she did not care so much about their work, there would be no problem.”

This is one among many circumstances in the lives of children in which we coach them to think and behave in ways that are appropriate for many situations which they encounter, but are absolutely wrong for others. Unfortunately parents often do not recognize this, and therefore cannot point out the difference to their children. It is as if they were saying: “Yes, we love your ideas, we love how hard you try and how much you care about all the things that you do.”

Then, suddenly, when it comes to new learning and/or new performance (the demonstration of skill) parents expect the same child to adapt a new point of view. Again, as if they were able to say: “When necessary, have a good attitude about new learning, be comfortable making errors, do not be concerned if your efforts do not result in impressive (knock-our-socks-off) results, as has been the case with everything that came before.” Writing, whether printing or cursive, becomes one of the first significant victims resulting from the conundrum of raising gifted and unique children in a perfectionist, competitive, measure-everything, world.

The summary statement presented to a child or teen in this situation is: “This is a sad situation. First, if you had far fewer ideas, a lesser vocabulary, and were less creative, writing would be easier because you would mentally generate fewer choices. Secondly, if you did not care so much about your work and your ideas and you were just willing to write anything—to write junk—you would not have this problem either. Thirdly, and mostly unfairly, you may be thought of as stubborn by your teacher and/or parents. But, really, as I look at it, why would you choose to live like this? Why would you simply refuse to write for no reason?”

IV. Solutions—

1. Describing and re-framing the problem:

Recognizing and describing the act of writing as a painful experience to children who are painfully mired in the throes of process, does not result in less effort, or caring, but validates and honors their experience and efforts, usually resulting in some degree of emotional relief.

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IV. Solutions—

1. Describing and re-framing the problem:

Recognizing and describing the act of writing as a painful experience to children who are painfully mired in the throes of process, does not result in less effort, or caring, but validates and honors their experience and efforts, usually resulting in some degree of emotional relief.

2. Improved Equipment:

Any writing implement is a tool. Children who dislike writing always give the same answer when asked what they write with: a pencil. The generic pencil to which they refer is generic. It exists without their personal interest, investment, or telling. It is not the right tool.

3. Attitude:

­Improving goals and expectations about writing begins by initiating a change in approach before any transfer of thoughts to the page begins. It is suggested that parents provide two reams of non-white colors of computer paper and encourage children to use them for the first and second phases (or drafts) of thought production. Colored paper can help to indicate to the world that: “This is in no way a final product.” The writer Joan Didion wrote a scathing article in the New Yorker magazine (early in this decade) about the decision of Ernest Hemingway’s heirs to publish hundreds of pages of his un-edited writing about Africa. She considered their act to be horrendously disrespectful. Her point is a useful one for young writers: the initial unedited, unpublished work of the greatest writers may be quite bad.

4. Cognitive Transitions—transferring thoughts from the brain to the page:

A. Transforming thoughts into (simple) pictures and story-boards.

B. Bits and pieces – breaking up, breaking down strategies

C. Webbing – guiding thinking toward written words

D. Mental tricks – taking one’s self out of the story; the get ­fired technique.

5. Judgment­:

Gifted children and teens require guidance to learning how to form useful opinions about their own writing. It is important not to underestimate the power of negative thinking–that is, the ability of children or teens to throw themselves off task before they begin, based on their own, well-rehearsed negative expectations. A fundamental aspect of cognitive-emotional life is also the greatest barrier to productivity: you cannot create and criticize yourself at the same time.

It is important to start thinking differently about one’s own writing. The various breaking-down, webbing, outlining and other similar methods intended to help transfer thoughts to the page still do not confront a second discrepancy-caused type of problem. That is the great contrast between the initial formation-of-ideas phase, or brainstorming phase, and the much shorter, more focused creation-of­-final- product. We encounter a paradox in which the more intensely a child cares about his/her initial idea-development suggestions, the stronger will be his/her feelings of disappointment or frustration as they approach the end product. Without careful attention to, and guidance about the contrast between initial brain-storming and an appropriate final product (which is so critical to feeling successful), they are unwittingly sowing seeds of disappointment.

And, there still exist other dilemmas of giftedness in American culture: competitiveness and inordinate performance expectations which make the measurable-final-product (as opposed to the process of creating) the primary determinant of value.

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We must try to help them focus on process; what the process of writing should feel like and look like.

To briefly illustrate, consider the following examples, contrasting the most ineffective and frustrating approach to writing with the most psychologically promising approach:

After the topic has been decided and/or research is done, Johnny B. Rigid begins to write. The goal is to write “The world’s best, most perfect, introductory paragraph, the first time.” He has absolutely no intention of editing (outlining and editing seem to be curse words for most of the children and teens with whom I have worked). This, of course, is virtually impossible; therefore his experience is to feel completely stuck.

This is not laziness. It is a dilemma. This is a painful state of mental and emotional confusion caused by lack of judgment, because we do not teach children at the appropriate level of detail, how to understand the writing process. It rarely seems to occur that children are taught in a manner appropriately attuned to their level of conscious thought. We seem to underestimate the difficulty gifted children have of transferring words, concepts, or life events, from their realm of conscious thinking through the many cognitive steps required to arrive at a satisfactory rendition in the form of the written word.

Neither do we enable them to discriminate and choose between moments of just-doing-and-not-criticizing their own work from stepping-back-and-applying­-critical- judgment (editing) to their own work.

Example Two:

Fiona I.S. Flexible is accustomed to friends laughing and adults responding with surprise or anger, when they encounter her for the first time, sitting in front of a computer. Whether in school or at home, Fiona often types into a blank screen. Virtually every first time observer seems to be impressed by the speed at which this third grader types, but their verbal reactions are always about the blank screen in front of which she is typing. Positive comments they might have made about her obvious typing prowess are pushed aside by the blank computer monitor.

Fiona types into a blank monitor because she has learned a very valuable method of circumventing her intense desires to do everything perfectly. Someone had suggested to her that since she can never hope to write anything absolutely correctly the first time, she might try writing blindly. “It is just that simple, you cannot criticize, demean, insult, make fun of, or put- down, something that you cannot see.” What a relief!

Sometimes Fiona looks at her writing the same day, sometimes a day later. When Fiona decides to print her document for the first time [sometimes before, sometimes after reviewing it] she prints it on pink paper. That way nobody, not her parents, her teacher, or even her older

brother will mistake it for ‘something final, or what she really means to write,’ so she does not have worry about it. Sometimes there is a second, but not final, printing which might be on yellow.

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Fiona has figured out, as well, who the best parent is to show each writing project, and who the best parent is to ask for help when she is stuck. She has even determined how to decide when she has finished.

Some projects are finished when Fiona runs out of time. Others when she has nothing more to say. Occasionally, her project looks so good that she feels that there is nothing left to improve. Somehow, Fiona has even learned that when she is thinking more and more ideas about a project, it does not mean that she is not finished and should keep on writing. She has accepted that she will never run out of ideas, she will always be able to think of something more to say, if she tries.

Still, Fiona has learned never to print on white paper until the last possible moment before it must be submitted. And she has learned never to show it to her brother.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE CLASSROOM

Teachers can help children to deal with their mistakes:

A. Change the meaning, change the grade

“If you turn any written work minus any errors, your grade cannot be better than ‘B.’ If you want an ‘A’ do your usual careful, thoughtful work, and be sure to leave a few errors in it. This must be presented with conviction. I perceive our culture to be extremely competitive and oriented toward unattainable perfection. Perfection may take the form of a 4.0 +; beating someone/everyone; or a highly respected adult telling you so. Children or teens locked into perfectionist expectations appear, most of the time, to not care about their work, or effort, at all.

B. Provide Pre-committed Errors:

Provide your student with one or two sheets of paper, one if writing assignment is two or less pages, two pages to provide front and back pages, and make some permanent marks on those pages. Offer a misspelled name or word, either on line or plain white. We must be a bit creative here, matching the type of errors and type of paper to the grade level and type of task. In this manner, you are modeling at least two useful behaviors:

You, the teacher, can try to model that you are not afraid to make errors or to write, or receive papers with errors. Challenge your class to catch your errors, for which there may be a fun prize, or privilege, for catching your errors, many of which you plan to make on purpose. This is also a great method to help some children to be interested and pay attention.

You can require that each student return their written work on at least one piece of paper provided by you, which represents the “break the ice,” or, “too late, there are errors on it

already, so relax,” document which provides errors, in advance. Hopefully, at least for some students, this may serve to pre-empt the perfectionist problem.

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WHERE S THE PAIN?

A role-playing idea I have utilized to provide an experience for children to

illustrate the real pain of writing, in order to reframe (significantly change) the

perception of their own efforts of transferring ideas from the mind to the page.

I. First, I ask a child or teen to tell me something “interesting or funny that happened in the past few days,” just to get them to begin to speak in logical, story form for 15 to 20 seconds.

AT the end of 15 to 20 seconds, I announce: “Please, now, write down exactly what you just said.” We observe that the verbal speech which required seconds, requires 3.5 to 4.5 minutes to write. I then say the following:

II. “You have very high verbal intelligence. You think very quickly, turning your thoughts into words instantly. You have a good memory, therefore you have many ideas to think about.”

“When you try to write them down, what occurs is:

“Your writing is too slow. As you write your thoughts go racing along. You are losing many of your thoughts as you try to write.”

III. “How do you know if the few thoughts [perhaps 10%] you have written on the page are your best ones, or even the good ones? Maybe your best thoughts flew right out of your mind, and out the window.”

IV. “Then, as you look at your handwriting there, on the page, it stinks. It doesn’t even look good. It’s not art, it’s not pretty. After all, you must write as quickly as possible to capture as many thoughts as possible [a losing battle].”

“Your writing has a bunch of holes in it [maybe your best thoughts]. And, although you are not sure yet, there are probably a bunch of misspelled words there, and you are not even sure, at first, which words they are!” The nasty results:

V. This procedure, this experience, of forcing thoughts onto the page is so bad, that it not only feels painful, but is capable of blocking your thoughts!

For example, if you saw a movie, and were talking about it just after viewing it, you would have all kinds of things to say. On the other hand, if a parent were to say, suddenly:

“OK this movie seems like a good candidate for that two-page writing project you have to do for school:” suddenly you would have no ideas!

Simply thinking that you will have to write your thoughts down actually impairs [gets in the way of] your thinking.

VI. A truth about all of us who are caring, hard working human beings, is that “You

cannot create, and judge, or criticize yourself at the same time.

Writing requires that you put your thoughts on the page. It commits your thoughts to a permanent physical record for all to see. If you really care about what you think and write; and if what you write seems always to be a poor, incomplete and random sample of what you really think, or of what you know, then, how are you supposed to feel good about it??!!